Morphology is the study of
morphemes, obviously. Morphemes
are words, word stems, and affixes, basically the unit of language one
up from phonemes. Although they are often understood as units of
meaning, they are usually considered a part of a language's syntax or
grammar. It is specifically grammatical morphemes that this
chapter will focus on.

It is in their morphology that we most clearly see the differences
between languages that are isolating
(such as Chinese, Indonesian, Krewol...), ones that are agglutinating (such as Turkish,
Finnish, Tamil...), and ones that are inflexional
(such as Russian, Latin, Arabic...). Isolating languages use
grammatical morphemes that are separate words. Agglutinating
languages use grammatical morphemes in the form of attached syllables
called affixes. Inflexional languages may go one step further and
actually change the word at the phonemic level to express grammatical
morphemes.

All languages are really mixed systems -- it's all a matter of
proportions. English, for example, uses all three methods:
To make the future tense of a verb, we use the particle will (I will
see you); to make the past tense, we usually use the affix -ed (I changed
it); but in many words, we change the word for the past (I see it becomes I saw
it). Looking at nouns, sometimes we make the plural with a
particle (three head of cattle), sometimes
with an affix (three cats), and sometimes by changing
the word (three men). But, because we
still use a lot of non-syllable affixes (such as -ed, usually pronounced as d or t,
and -s, usually pronounced as
s or z, dependeing on context), English is still considered an
inflexional language by most linguists.

Affixes

Most languages, but especially agglutinating and inflexional ones,
differentiate between the stem of the word, which carries the
basic meaning, and various affixes or attachments that carry
additional, often grammatical, meanings. There are several kinds
of affixes:

Suffixes are attached to the end of the stem; Prefixes are attached to the front of the stem; Infixes are put in the middle of the word; Ablaut is a change in a vowel that carries extra meaning; Reduplication is a matter of doubling a syllable to do the
same.

Suffixes are the most common, and English uses them. For example,
the
past tense of most verbs is a matter of adding -ed to the stem;
the
present participle is made by adding -ing; the plural of a noun
is
made by adding -s.

Turkish is an example of an agglutinating language that makes
extensive use of suffixes. One example I found on the internet
(Learning Practical Turkish) is the word terbiyesizliklerindenmis:

good manners

terbiye

without good manners, rude

terbiyesiz

rudeness

terbiyesizlik

their rudeness

terbiyesizlikleri

from their rudeness

terbiyesizliklerinden

I gather that it was from their
rudeness

terbiyesizliklerindenmis

Note that a language doesn't necessarily need to be
agglutinating to have long words. German, for example, has
Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz,
and
English has Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis!

Although prefix languages are a bit rarer, they can be every bit
as
expansive.

Ablaut is common in English and its Germanic cousins. For
example, the past tense of sing
is sang, and the past participle is sung. The
plural of
goose is geese. Ablaut seems to come from former
suffixes
that influenced the pronunciation of the vowel, then disappeared over
time.
Goose-geese was once gos-gese, and before that gos-göse,
and before that gos-gose. The plural suffix -e caused the
fronting
of the vowel o to ö and then e.

Infixes are best illustrated by the Semitic languages, such as
Arabic. Many words in Arabic are composed of three consonants,
and many of the grammatical
variations are produced by altering the vowels between and around
them.
For example, the root for writing is ktb:

to write

kataba

writing

kaatib

a book

kitaab

books

kutub

author

kattaab

Perhaps, thousands of years ago, some people began generalized
from
ablauts -- as if we were to start saying pan-pen (rather than
pan-pans), following the pattern of man-men.

Irish (and other Celtic languages, such as Gaelic, Welsh, and Breton)
are unusual in that it is the consonants that change in various
situations, rather than the vowels. Note that th is pronounced h,dt is pronounced d, ea is a, ch is as in loch, and bh is v.

house

flat

teach

árasán

my

mo

mo theach

m'árasán

your

do

do theach

d'árasán

his

a

a theach

a
árasán

her

a

a teach

a hárasán

our

ar

ar dteach

ar n-árasán

your

bhur

bhur dteach

bhur n-árasán

their

a

a dteach

a n-árasán

Nouns

Nouns are words that name or denote a person, thing, action,
or
quality. They are “thing” words -- although “things” can include
all
sorts of abstract ideas that might otherwise look more like verbs or
adjectives.
In various languages, they are marked, by affixes or particles, as to
their
number, gender, definiteness, and especially cases.

Definiteness concerns the extent to which we are talking
about a
specific thing or event, one that is known to the speakers, or about
something
less well defined, such as any old thing, or something not specific.

In English, the definite is marked by the article the.
It
can also be marked by other words, such as this, that, my, yours,
and
so on. The indefinite is marked by the article a or an,
as well as the plural without an article, or words such as one,
two, some,
any, etc. On the other hand, many languages don't use
articles at
all -- Latin, Russian, Hindi, and Chinese come to mind!

In a number of languages, the definite is marked with a
suffix. This
is true of Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Icelandic, Rumanian, Bulgarian,
and
Albanian, among others. The Scandinavian languages are, of
course, closely related, so we would expect them to share a feature
like this. But Rumanian, Bulgarian, and Albanian are only
distantly related. It seems that they influenced each other, or perhaps
there were people living in the Balkans in ancient times who influenced
them all.

Number, of course, refers to how many of the item we are
talking about. There are three common numbers: Singular,
meaning
one; plural, meaning more than one; and somewhat rarer,
the dual, meaning two. You can see the significance of
the dual in our own use
of words such as couple, pair, and so on. Again, many
languages
do not mark the plural, much less the dual.

The most complex aspect of nouns is cases, also known as declensions.
Philosophers
in ancient Greece and India were already discussing this
as much
as 2500 years ago! Much of the terminology we still use today was
invented
during the Roman Empire, and reflects the cases used in Latin.

The first case is the nominative, roughly the subject of the
sentence.
In many languages, it is the basic form, sometimes represented by the
bare
stem. A second case is the vocative, which is the form
used
when calling out to someone, sort of like “Oh, Claudius!” The
rest
of the cases are referred to as oblique or objective.
Languages
that make many distinctions among the oblique cases use them
in
the same way that other languages use prepositions or postpositions.

Accusative -- the direct object of the
verb: He threw the ball.

Dative -- the indirect object: He threw it to
John.

Ablative -- expressed in English with the preposition
from: He threw from first base.

Locative -- expressed in English with prepositions such
as at or in:We were at the hotdog stand
in the
stadium.

Genitive -- the possessive form, often expressed in
English
with the word of, but also with the case suffix ‘s:It was John’s ball.

Instrumental -- expressed in English with prepositions
like with:He hit it with a bat.

Sociative -- also expressed in English with with,
but
now referring to people: I went out with her.

There are many others. A language in the Caucasus Mountains
called Tassaran has 48 noun cases! However, many linguists point
out that cases
should only refer to inflexional languages such as Latin.
Agglutinative languages such as Finnish can be better thought of as
having postpositions that are attached to the noun, since they are very
consistent and easy to
recognize, unlike the cases in Latin.

Here is an example of the Russian word for country, singular and plural:

singular

plural

nominative

strana

strany

accusative

stranu

strany

genitive

strany

stran

dative

strane

stranam

instrumental

stranoj

stranomi

locative

strane

stranax

This wouldn’t be such a strain, until you realize that there are
several different declensions, and quite a few exceptions as well.

Compare that with an example of the word for man in Tamil, a Dravidian
language of southern India:

singular

plural

nominative

manitan

manitarkal

accusative

manitanai

manitarkalai

dative

manitanukku

manitarkalukku

sociative

manitanotu

manitarkalotu

genitive

manitanutaiya

manitarkalutaiya

instrumental

manitanal

manitarkalal

locative

manitanitam

manitarkalitam

ablative

manitanitamiruntu

manitarkalitamiruntu

Although there are even more cases, these endings are the same for
all
other
nouns! And notice how the plural is just a matter of sticking kal
inbetween the
stem and the affix.

One interesting side issue: In most languages, the subject of an
intransitive verb (he sits)
is in the same form (i.e. the nominative) as the subject of a
transitive verb (he sees him),
and
the object of a transitive verb is different (i.e. the
accusative). These languages are known as nominative-accusative
languages. But there are also languages where the subject of an
intransitive verb is in the same form as the object of a transitive
verb (i.e. the absolutive),
and the subject of a transitive verb is different (i.e. the ergative). In these languages, it
would be as if we said he sees him
but then him sits! These
are
called ergative-absolutive
languages.

Among the ergative-absolutive languages are Basque, the northern
Caucasian languages, many Australian aborigine languages, Eskimo-Aleut,
and many other languages of north and central America. They are all
verb-first or verb-last languages.

Gender is perhaps the oddest noun variation. It is
called gender because it is -- loosely -- tied to the physical sex of
people and animals. Many languages differentiate between masculine
nouns and feminine nouns, with different endings for each, and
requiring different articles and adjective forms along with them.
French, Spanish, Italian, and Portuguese are examples.

Other languages, such as German, count three genders:
Masculine, feminine, and neuter. Neuter presumably refers
to things that don’t have a gender, but there is little consistency
there. In Dutch, there are two genders, but they are neuter and common,
common
deriving from what was originally masculine and feminine.
English nouns have no gender.

Many languages outside the European sphere differentiate between animate
and inanimate, one referring to people, animals, and spirits,
the other
to things. And there are many languages that make many
differentiations: Bantu languages, for example, have many noun
categories, such as "long, thin
things," "body parts," "places," and so on.

In Chinese, there is a strong isolating (non-affix) version of
this: When
you
want to indicate more than one of something, you must use a special
word
called a classifier between the number and the object.
This
is analogous to the way we might say three head of cattle.

There are still more examples of noun variation: Diminutives
express smallness (dog becomes doggy, for example), and
augmentatives express largeness. Diminutives are often
also used to express affection, and augmentatives sometimes express
danger or evil.

Some languages have a variety of honorifics, often suffixes
or prefixes
that indicate status. The Japanese -san is a well known
example.
There are also affixes that indicate lowly status, and in some
languages
several different degrees of status!

Pronouns

Pronouns are words that serve as place-holders for
nouns. Instead of referring to a person by his or her name, we
use he or she; instead of naming something repeatedly,
we refer to it as it. Pronouns have many of the same
variations as nouns, including gender, number, and case. There
are also three persons that are differentiated in most
languages: First refers to the person speaking or his/her
group (I, me; we, us); Second person refers to the person
spoken to
or his/her group (you); And the third person refers to other
people
outside
the conversation or to things (he, him, she, her, it, they, them).
In
English, for example...

nominative

oblique

possessive
(adjective)

possessive
(pronomial)

first person singular

I

me

my

mine

second person singular

you

your

yours

third person singular male

he

him

his

third person singular female

she

her

hers

third person singular neuter

it

its

first person plural

we

us

our

ours

second person plural

you

your

yours

third person plural

they

them

their

theirs

("Oblique" is the name for a case that covers the objects of a verb
or any preposition.)

For comparison, here's the Icelandic declension of the pronoun anyone:

masculine

feminine

neuter

singular

nominative

nokkur

nokkur

nokkurt

accusative

nokkurn

nokkra

nokkurt

dative

nokkrum

nokkurri

nokkru

gentive

nokkurs

nokkurrar

nokkurs

plural

nominative

nokkrir

nokkrar

nokkur

accusative

nokkra

nokkrar

nokkur

dative

nokkrum

nokkrum

nokkrum

genitive

nokkurra

nokkura

nokkura

In some languages, there are two forms of the third person
plural: One is inclusive, and refers to the speaker and
the listener together (Why don’t we go have a drink together
sometime?); the other is exclusive, and refers to the
speaker’s group distinct from the listener (We are going
to beat your team!).

There are also pronouns that reflect the action back onto the
subject --
appropriately named reflexive pronouns. In English, they
are
often nicely marked with -self(myself, yourself, himself,
etc.).
In many languages, there is a generic reflexive for the third person
singular
or even third person singular and plural. In Spanish, for
example,
that function is performed by the single word se.

Politeness is often an issue with pronouns. In many European
languages, there is a distinction made between a familiar and a
formal version of the second person singular. In French,
for example, you call
your friends tu and your parents, teachers, or boss vous.
You
don’t switch to tu until it is subtly agreed between the
two
of
you that it is okay to “tutoyer.” In some Asian
languages, there
is considerably more detail involved.

There are other kinds of pronouns besides the personal ones. Demonstrative
pronouns include this, that, these, and those.
Many languages
have three sets of these, one for things nearby the speaker, one for
things
nearby the listener, and one for things away from either.

Indefinite pronouns include words such as someone,
anyone, many,
and so on. Like the indefinite article, they don’t indicate
precisely
whom are what we are talking about.

Interrogative pronouns are used to ask question: Who
is
that
man?Relative pronouns are used to connect a
noun with
a clause that gives more detail about the noun: He is the one
whom
you saw yesterday. As you can see, in English, these two
groups of pronouns are often
the
same!

Verbs

Verbs are words which express action taken by something, the
state
something is in or a change in that state, or an interaction between
one
thing and another. Like nouns, there are many variations of
verbs.

Transitive verbs are ones that have both a subject and an
object: John hit the ball. John is the subject and ball
the object of
the verb hit. Intransitive verbs are ones that only have
a subject: I laughed. There is nothing that is laughed
(except, I suppose, the laugh itself.) Many verbs have an
intermediate form called the reflexive, meaning that the
subject is also the object: I hurt myself. As the
example shows, reflexive verb forms often take a reflexive pronoun as
their object! But there are reflexive verbs that don’t: They
got married.

The biggest issue with verb forms is conjugation. In
some languages, it is a fairly simple matter; in others, there are a
huge variety of affixes.

Most familiar to Europeans are tenses. Many languages
differentiate between the past tense, the present
tense, and the future tense. Some languages also
differentiate various details of timing, such as an immediate
form, a proximate form (near in time), and a distal
form (the distant past or future.) Quite a few languages
(Russian and Japanese included) only distingish past from "non-past."

In French, I sing goes through the following changes:

past (definite)

chantai

present

chante

future

chanterai

Aspect is actually much older, and seems to tie into our
psychology as human beings. The perfect aspect (as well
as the similar completive or aorist) tells us that the
action is finished, completed, “perfected.” In English, it is
represented by various forms of the word to have, followed by
the past participle: I had said (past perfect, aka
pluperfect), I have said (present perfect), I will have said
(future perfect). As the last one suggests, by the time we reach
a
particular point in the future, my saying something will be over and
done
with.

There is a passive version of the perfect called the effective.
In
English, an example might be He got seen.

The imperfect (aka durative or continuative)
has an
ongoing tone to it: The action continues through the
moment. In
English, we use a form of the verb to be followed by the
present participle:
I was saying, I am saying, I will be saying.

There are a number of variations on the imperfect aspect. The progressive
-- I have been saying -- suggests that the action started a bit
earlier
and continues through the present. The iterative (aka repetitive)
--
I keep saying -- indicates that a single action is
repeatedly performed.
And the inceptive (aka commencement) -- Let’s get
going
-- says to us that the action should get started.

Finally, there is the simple (or indefinite)
aspect. This includes the usual tenses used as is: I
said, I say, I will say. The simple past is often called the preterite.

Next up is mood or mode. The basic form is the indicative:
We
are saying something that happened, is happening, or will
happen. A version of the indicative is the stative, which
indicates that someone
or something is in a particular state, as opposed to taking a
particular action:
He sits.

The next three are used when there is a degree of unreality
involved, and
are often blended together. The optative (aka desiderative)
indicates
a desire or wish for something to happen. In English,
this is usually expressed with auxiliary (helper) verbs such as should
or
would, as well as with expressions such as I wish....

The conditional mood is used when the reality of one event
depends on the reality of another: I will go if you go.
English
has the remnants of a conditional: We say If I were
to go... rather than If I was
to go.... But it is
rapidly going the way
of the who-whom distinction!

The subjunctive mood is used when there is some doubt or
uncertainty about the event. Many languages have entire
conjugations of subjunctive, in various tenses and aspects. It
was the bane of my high school French
class.

There are other moods. In Japanese, for example, there are provisional
and tentative versions of verbs. And many languages have
the imperative: Do this! In English this is
expressed by
leaving out the subject (you).

In French, the aspect and mood variations on I sing look like this:

imperfect

chantais

conditional

chanterais

present subjunctive

chante

Next, we have various voices.
The
active voice is
the basic one. It is used when the subject performs an action.

The passive voice is used when the subject of the sentence
is actually
the object of the action. In English, we use a form of to be
with the past participle: I was hit.

The causative is a voice used when the subject causes the
object to perform an action, as in He made me do it.

When the causative is combined with the reflexive, it is called the dynamic:
They married themselves!

Person is an aspect of verb forms in many languages.
Most commonly, there is an ending or other affix that indicates
something about the subject (such as first, second, or third person,
gender, and singular or plural). In English, the only person
ending left in almost all verbs
is the -s in the third person singular of the present tense (he does,
vs I, you, we, he, she, it, or they do).

There are languages (Basque comes to mind) where the direct object
and even the indirect object is also included in the verb form. Dakarzkizu,
for
example, means he brings them to you, while Zenekarzkidan
means you brought them to me. (Kar is the piece of these words
that is the equivalent to bring in English)

Here's a simple French conjugation, in the present tense, showing
person:

singular

plural

first person

chante

chantons

second person

chantes

chantez

third person

chante

chantent

In addition, some languages have variations that express various levels
of
politeness. In Japanese, for example, Hon o katta
means
I bought a book -- but in a sort of abrupt, no nonsense way. Hon
o
kaimashita means I bought the book, but more politely
expressed.

Another common verb variation is the negative. In
English, we use the word not after one of several auxiliary
(see below) verbs. There is a tendency, however, for many verbs
to change in the negative, by combining with the not: I
can’t, I won’t, I don’t, I ain’t.... Although we can still
see
where they come from (and the apostrophe reminds us), they are
well
on there way to becoming separate forms.

There are other languages where the verb changes when it is a part
of a
question. In Irish, for example tá (to be)
becomes an
bhfuil in questions.

I can't move on without mentioning that in Hausa (a language of
Nigeria), tense, aspect, etc., are indicated with variations of the
subject pronoun, not the verb, as in these example of the word for he:

perfect

kin

future

záaki

predictive

kyâa

habitual

kíkàn

subjunctive

kì

continuous

kínàa

(It might surprise you to know that we are moving this way in
English,
too: I'd, I've, I'll, etc.)

In isolating languages such as Chinese, or in languages moving strongly
in
that direction, such as English and French, many of the preceding
variations are not done by adding endings or changing the verb.
They are done with
auxiliary verbs. In English, for example, we say He
will
sing, rather than Il chantera as in French. In
French, on
the other hand, we often say Ila chanté instead
of He
sang.
These particular examples are called compound tenses, but they
can
also involve aspects and moods and so on.

Participles are forms of the verb that are often used in such
compound
verbs. In English, we have two: The past participle
(which
usually ends in -ed, just like the past tense) and the present
participle
(which ends in -ing). Participles are also used as adjectives: He
is
a dancing fool.He was a beaten man. And
they can
even be used as nouns: Help the down-trodden. Winning
is everything.
Note that the past participle is often referred to as the passive
participle, and the present participle as the active
participle.

Another form of the verb often used in compound verbs is the infinitive.
In
English, we don't have a real infinitive form -- we just put to
in front of it: To sleep, perchance to dream....
And so
we say He wants to run, a compound made with wants plus
the
infinitive of run. In many languages, there is a special
form.
In French, for example, it usually ends in -r, and is used as the
dictionary
form.

There are many forms of verbal nouns (gerunds) --
i.e. verbs
used as nouns, with or without special endings. The infinitive
and
the participles are examples. But we can also use the verb as is
in
many languages -- English being the best example, since we do it all
the
time: I dance and I go to the dance and I do
a dance and I devote my life to the dance!

Other Parts of Speech

Adjectives are words which modify nouns. In many
languages, adjectives have affixes that must agree with their nouns in
case, number, gender, etc.

One peculiar feature of adjectives in many language is comparison:
There
may be special forms of the adjective when you are using it to
say that
a noun is more or less of whatever quality the adjective expresses (the
comparative
form), or that is is the most or least of that quality (the superlative
form). In English, we still see special words like good/better/best,
regular endings such as big/bigger/biggest, and analytic forms
such
as significant/more significant/most significant.

Adverbs are words or phrases which modify verbs, adjectives,
or
even other adverbs. There are often special endings that
differentiate adverbs from similar adjectives: In English,
adverbs often end in -ly; In French, they often end in -ment.

Sometimes, adverbs are used to ask questions or to introduce certain
kinds of subordinate clauses which tell more about such things as when,
where, and how the action will happen. For example, when will
you be going? and I will go when I am good and ready.

Numerals (or just numbers) often come in both
adjective and
adverbial forms. In Shakespeare's time, we said three men, but
it was done thrice. Today, of course, the latter is analytic:
It was done three times.

The simple form of numerals is the cardinal number, which
indicates a certain quantity of something. There is also the ordinal
number,
which indicates the position of something in a sequence: He was the
third
man. We see a analytic construction more and more frequently
today:
He was her number one man, or she was bachelorette number
three.

Prepositions are words which can allow a noun to qualify
another noun or a verb in a way that parallels adjectives or
adverbs: The man in the yard ran into the
house. Many languages -- Japanese, for example -- have postpositions
instead of prepositions, but they serve the same purpose. Noun
cases are often a substitute for
prepositions or postpositions, and may in fact have developed out of
them.

Irish is interesting in that its prepositions ofen vary by person,
just
like verbs: Here is the "conjugation" of the preposition roimh
(before)
(mh is pronounced w):

before me

romham

before you (singular)

romhat

before him

roimhe

before her

roimpi

before us

romhainn

before you (plural)

romhaibh

before them

rompu

Conjunctions are words that connect two parts of a
sentence. There are two kinds of conjunctions. The most familiar
are the coordinating conjunctions, such as and, or, and but. The second kind are the
subordinating conjunctions (sometimes just called subordinators) such
as if, because, so that, that,
etc. These introduce certain kinds of subordinate clauses, such as I work so that I can feed my children
and I think that she is lovely.

Finally, there are interjections. Interjections are
expressions of emotion -- not true words but rather vocal noises that
reflect the feelings of the speaker: Oh! Huh?
Hey! Shit! The
last one is, of course, also a regular word, but its use in this case
has
nothing to do with what it literally refers to.